Green Mountain Central Labor Council

Vermont Interview with American YPG Volunteer Concerning the Revolution in Rojava (Syria)

by Not Signed In | Activism

Waterbury Vermont, February, 2019 – Michael Alexander, a guest of the Green Mountain Central Labor Council AFL-CIO, recently spoke to Equal Time Radio (WDEV 550AM) about his experience serving as a volunteer soldier in the YPG. The YPG & YPJ are the military arm of the revolution in the northern Syria.  The revolution, which is ideologically influenced by the writings of the Vermont philosopher Murray Bookchin, is seeking to establish a secular Town Meeting-like direct democracy in Rojava (Syria).  Alexander, a native of Ohio USA, served as a heavy machine gunner on the Raqqa front. 

VT AFL-CIO Welcomes YPG Vet, Holds Political Convention

by Not Signed In | Politics

Over this past weekend [1/26/19], the Vermont AFL-CIO held its annual COPE Convention at the Old Socialist Labor Hall in the granite City of Barre. The day was spent strategizing Labor’s approaches to seeing a $15 an hour livable wage, paid family medical leave, and card check recognition becoming Vermont law in 2019. By passing card check recognition (S36), anytime a majority of public sector workers in a single shop sign Union cards, they would immediately be recognized as a Union without having to go through a drawn out and bureaucratic Labor Board election process (a process that provides anti-Union employers an unfair advantage and time to use scare tactics against employees). Passing card check in Vermont is a concrete way that Labor can begin to go back on the offensive here in the Green Mountains.